Alice Wedel, 'Det stora trädet (The Great Tree)'.
Batik 212 x 136 cm.
Vähäisiä tahroja.
Nils and Alice Wedel.
Thence by descent within the family.
Alice Wedel was one of Sweden's most skilled textile artists, and during the 1930s she created a number of post-cubist batiks featuring musical instruments based on designs composed by her husband Nils Wedel (1897–1967). Together, the artist couple experimented with a new mural painting technique they called navax. Through this new technique, they could attach the pre-dyed but not yet de-waxed batik fabric to a wax-prepared panel or wall surface. The fabric was then "melted" into the surface using a blowtorch and hot irons.
Alice Wedel's own compositions were softer in style than her husband's, drawing influences from Oriental splendor and the mosaics of Ravenna. Among her more notable works are the composition Bouquet from 1955 and the bird image Own Nest, both executed with great craftsmanship and artistic ingenuity.
Alice Wedel participated in the World Exposition in Paris in 1925, where she was awarded a gold medal, and at the Stockholm Exhibition in 1930. The auction's Batik 'The Great Tree' bears similarities to the batik exhibited in Paris in 1925, which also depicts a tree. Wedel is represented at the Röhsska Museum of Design and Craft, the Nationalmuseum, the Norrköping Art Museum, the Malmö Museum, and the Sahlgrenska Hospital.